Bioaugmentation Treatment of Mature Landfill Leachate by New Isolated Ammonia Nitrogen and Humic Acid Resistant Microorganism

The mature landfill leachate, which is characterized by a high concentration of ammonia nitrogen ($NH_3$-N) and humic acid (HA), poses a challenge to biotreatment methods, due to the constituent toxicity and low biodegradable fraction of the organics. In this study, we applied bioaugmentation technology in landfill leachate degradation by introducing a domesticated $NH_3$-N and HA resistant bacteria strain, which was identified as Bacillus cereus (abbreviated as B. cereus Jlu) and Enterococcus casseliflavus (abbreviated as E. casseliflavus Jlu), respectively. The isolated strains exhibited excellent tolerant ability for $NH_3$-N and HA and they could also greatly improved the COD (chemical oxygen demand), $NH_3$-N and HA removal rate, and efficiency of bioaugmentation degradation of landfill leachate. Only 3 days was required for the domesticated bacteria to remove about 70.0% COD, compared with 9 days' degradation for the undomesticated (autochthonous) bacteria to obtain a similar removal rate. An orthogonal array was then used to further improve the COD and $NH_3$-N removal rate. Under the optimum condition, the COD removal rate in leachate by using E. casseliflavus Jlu and B. cereus Jlu increased to 86.0% and 90.0%, respectively after, 2 days of degradation. The simultaneous removal of $NH_3$-N and HA with more than 50% and 40% removal rate in leachate by employing the sole screened strain was first observed.